Every basket has a par.
Your shelves are stocked, your tills are open, and the month still ends short. We follow one basket from your shelf to your till, find what it really earns you, and close the gap.
Where one basket's money goes
A sample basket through a retail shop: shelved, sold, staffed and sometimes returned. Every figure is a sample. Yours come from your own files.
- What the basket earns you12.000
- Goods sold8.600
- Stock that sits: finance and markdowns0.360
- Staff at the till and on the floor1.050
- Shrink0.230
- Returns0.200
- Rent and running costs0.900
- Card fees and cash handling0.180
- What you keep0.480
Seven units, one number each
Each unit the basket passes through has one number that tells you how it is doing. A sample chain, read the way we read you.
Sample
- Shelf
Lines on the shelf when your customer arrives
YOU 91%PAR 97%
An empty facing sends your customer to the next shop and takes the basket with it. You paid the rent and the staff for that hour either way.
- Stock
Days of stock
YOU 74PAR 52
Stock that sits is your cash on a shelf. Every extra week is money you borrowed, and the markdown follows.
- Staff
Sales per staff hour, BD
YOU 38PAR 52
Your people are on the floor whether the shop is full or empty. The rota follows habit, not the hours your baskets arrive.
- Shrink
Shrink, share of sales
YOU 1.8%PAR 0.9%
Theft, damage and counting errors leave through the door unbilled. You bought the goods and never sold them.
- Returns
Returns, share of sales
YOU 4.2%PAR 2.5%
A returned basket gives back the sale and keeps your cost of handling it. Some lines come back far more than others, and your average hides which.
- Rent
Sales per square metre per month, BD
YOU 310PAR 420
Your lease is fixed and not every square metre works for it. The corner nobody walks to pays the same rent as your till.
- Cash
Days from paying your supplier to cash in your bank
YOU 46PAR 30
You pay your supplier before the basket sells and wait for the card settlement after. Your cash sits on the shelf and in transit.
Availability has a price
LuLu Retail raised its inventory holdings to keep products available, and said higher input costs and limited room to pass them on to customers weighed on gross margin. Online sales rose 53% and made up 9.7% of its retail sales.
Source: Khaleej Times, reporting LuLu Retail's third-quarter results, 6 November 2026. From our Moneyball Finance research.
Three moves, in this order
Bring last month
Till receipts, stock counts, the rota, leases, supplier terms and bank statements, as they are. One sitting at your table.
Get your score
One page with your numbers beside your par, unit by unit, and the places the difference goes.
Close the biggest leak
We fix the largest one first, then we score you again every month.
How we close the gap
We price every basket
You see what each shop earns you per basket, after stock, staff, shrink and rent. The shops that lose money show first.
We cut the days of stock
Fewer weeks of your cash on the shelf. You buy what sells and mark down less of what does not.
We set the rota to the hour
Your staff follow the hours your baskets arrive. Sales per staff hour rise while the queue at the till stays short.
We rebuild your lease and supplier terms
We sit beside you at the landlord's table and the supplier's. You walk in knowing what each shop can pay per square metre.
On your desk
- One basket priced start to finish, for each of your shops.
- A profit statement, shop by shop.
- A stock plan that keeps your cash off the shelf.
- A rota and a rent case for each branch.
- Your score every month, unit by unit.
What owners ask us
- How do I know which of my shops lose money?
- Price each one on its own. We set what a basket earns you in each shop against its stock, staff, shrink, returns and rent, and you see each shop's profit on one page.
- How many days of stock should a retail chain hold?
- As many as each line sells through, and no more. We read your own sell-through line by line and set the days each one needs, so your cash stops sitting on shelves that move slowly.
- How do I find out where my shrink comes from?
- Count it as a share of sales, shop by shop and line by line. You see which branch leaks and which lines leave, and we close the largest gap first.
- Do you work with one shop, or only chains?
- Both. One shop or forty branches, we price one basket, find the largest leak and fix it first.
We read a chain by the basket
Our founder set the money logic behind a last-mile fleet of about 1,000 vehicles at BaladiMart, part of Al Baladi Group, and brought more than 20 companies across several countries onto one set of numbers. We read your shops the way you run them, by the basket, the shelf and the day the cash lands.
Related
- Network & Fleet StrategyWhether you own, lease or partner for delivery, and how your network turns a profit.
- IntegrationsYour dispatch, orders, point of sale, stock and the ledger you already run, connected.
- Grocery & quick commerceOne order through your dark store: stock, picking, slots, riders and waste.
Bring last month. Leave with a score.
Sit down with Qasim Abbas. One table, your numbers, and a clear read on where you stand against par.